Implicit Attitudes, Emotions, and Helping Intentions of Mental Health Workers Toward Their Clients

• Published in: The journal of nervous and mental disease Vol. 201; no. 6; pp. 460 - 463
• Main Authors: Brener, Loren, Rose, Grenville, von Hippel, Courtney, Wilson, Hannah
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Hagerstown, MD Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Inc 01-06-2013; Lippincott Williams & Wilkins; Lippincott Williams & Wilkins Ovid Technologies
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; Attitude of Health Personnel; Attitudes; Biological and medical sciences; Emotions; Female; Helping Behavior; Humans; Intention; Male; Medical sciences; Mental disorders; Mental Disorders - psychology; Mental Disorders - therapy; Mental Health - manpower; Mental health care; Professional-Patient Relations; Psychological Tests; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychopathology. Psychiatry; Quality of care; Young Adult; Human; Affect affectivity; Implicit attitudes; emotions; helping intentions; Customer; Health staff; Implicit attitude; Mental health; Intention; Emotion emotionality
• ISSN: 0022-3018; 1539-736X
• DOI: 10.1097/NMD.0b013e318294744a

ABSTRACTThe attitudes of mental health care workers toward their clients may influence the quality of care they provide. There is growing recognition of the role of implicit attitudes in behavior toward people with stigmatized illnesses, such as mental illness, and of the need to measure these separately from explicit attitudes. Seventy-four mental health workers completed implicit and explicit measure of attitudes toward people with mental illness. The participants were also asked about their intention to help people with mental illness and their emotional reactions toward people with a mental illness. The findings show that the implicit attitudes of the health workers toward clients with a mental illness are somewhat negative despite the fact that their explicit attitudes are somewhat positive. Although both implicit and explicit attitudes predicted negative emotions, only implicit attitudes were related to helping intentions. This study highlights the association between implicit attitudes and behavioral intentions and confirms the importance of addressing implicit attitudes in mental health research.